


Gold

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drugs, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-22
Updated: 2009-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fairyland was officially closed for business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold

  
Today had not been a good day.

Even before Dean was surrounded by invisible corpses.

Weird little gremlin creature corpses, which Dean was willing to bet weren't invisible because it was fun but because they were so damn ugly the world liked it better that way.

The fact that he had _god knew what_ in his eyes just so he could even see the damn things to kill them was a pretty miserable check of his 'list of things which suck'. Which was thanks to Bobby, though Dean had taken one look at Sam's face when he'd read the list of ingredients and decided he never, ever wanted to know what he had smeared across his eyeballs. Ever.

Oh, and the fact that the 'god knew what' also pretty much made it possible to see everything else you shouldn't be able to see was just a hilarious bonus.

From the moment they'd put the cold, rancid, just plain nasty stuff into their eyes the world pretty much turned inside out. For a start the air was full of purple-orange flashes, which could have been tiny invisible insects or bacteria or magic or what the hell knew, whatever it was it was distracting.

Pretty much every living thing was surrounded by a little halo of colour, leaving trails from where they'd been and where they were going. Every single living thing. In really dense parts of the forest it was like walking through a watercolour painting.

Looking at Sam had made him dizzy as hell, every movement leaving trails of blue and red and the occasional disturbing thread of iron grey. Looking at his own hands had nearly left him in a tree more than once, because people shouldn't have outlines damn it! It was like someone had coloured him in and not gone all the way to the edges.

Under all that was the old death in the air, trails of grey and red with flecks of sparking black, floating in the air like ash from a volcano. More disturbing still were the occasional dark empty spaces hanging in the air, or smeared across the ground, where it looked like the world had just been emptied out, with left nothing behind, and Dean was pretty damn sure he wasn't going near any of those spots. He was kind of disturbed about the fact that he couldn't see them every day.

So yeah, the world had definitely taken a turn for the stupendously messed up once they could see what Sam had jokingly referred to as _'Fairyland,'_ probably just to piss Dean off.

But killing the things had been pretty easy after that.

Sam had volunteered to take the unfortunate campers, who'd managed to survive a night in the woods, back into town.

The place was empty now, Dean was fairly sure of that. No matter how many hallucination-like curls of bright colour and movement he could see that told him otherwise.

Fairyland was officially closed for business.

It was time to get the hell out of here before he followed a white rabbit down a hole.

One of the trees to his right shivered like it was alive, running lines of black and yellow and then swallowing them whole, before disappearing entirely. Whether that meant it was an invisible tree or just the memory of a tree he didn't have a clue. Disturbing either way so he wasn't going to think about it.

If Dean was really, really lucky he wasn't going to walk into it either.

He looked away before his brain unravelled, dug a knuckle into the corner of his eye and swore. His hand, when he pulled it away, shifted green and purple, leaving blurs of colour in the air. He'd spent almost an entire day looking at things that weren't there, why should the weirdness stop now?

He tugged his phone out of his pocket and called Sam.

The stuff also made his eyes itch like hell. He'd be glad when he could wash it off and the whole world stopped looking like some sort of whacked-out 3D movie on acid.

He rubbed them again, then gave in and laid his thumbs there while Sam pointedly didn't answer his phone-

Until he did.

"What?"

Sam's mood clearly hadn't improved any from the last time he'd seen him.

"You doing okay?" Dean asked, and from the sound of the groan he got Sam had been laying down somewhere with something over his face and was pretty pissed about being disturbed. Well tough shit, Dean was the one that was still out here communing with nature. A nature no man should have to see without indulging in a vast quantity of drugs first.

"I'm back at the motel, trying to look at as little as possible," Sam told him, all different shades of moodiness. "Avoiding people, since I think I probably keep looking at weird things which most likely aren't there."

Dean huffed laughter, mockery just for fun when he knew damn well he was in the same boat. The after-echoes of smeared out people-trails across the grass in front of him were probably hours old but they were still edged in light, like something from a car commercial, blurs of colour in vague people shapes that he couldn't quite bring himself to walk through.

"I've been around this place twice and there's nothing else here. It looks like we got them all."

"You sure?"

"Yeah Sam, go ahead and wash it out." There was a noise of inelegant relief over the phone and some thankful swearwords.

"What about you, Bobby said not to leave this stuff in longer than twenty four hours and-" Dean swore he could hear Sam checking his watch in the background. "-it's more than past that now."

"He did promise we wouldn't keel over dead," Dean pointed out. Not keeling over dead was important in the grand scheme of things.

"But he said it would get more intense."

Honestly, the background noise of Sam fretting over his delicate self would never get old.

"I'm ten minutes away Sam."

"Just get back here," Sam complained, then didn't even give him a chance to not-so-good-naturedly insult him, he just cut him off. Those hallucinatory 'everything-is-sparkling' headaches could be a bitch Dean supposed. Though he was close enough himself that he wasn't going to hold it over him, much.

But the next time Bobby suggested pouring strange crap in his eyes he was just going to say no.

He was just going to say no to drugs next time.

He shoved his phone back in his pocket and tried not to look at anything as he made his way back to the car.

The car he didn't mind so much.

She looked _fucking beautiful._

The slippery overlaid lines of her were wet and shiny, all of her angles in the sunlight all at once like he was looking at her through a damn diamond or something that was guaranteed to make his brain hurt. It was like she was made of music and light, and wherever he touched her she sparked and shone- like she _liked_ it.

And he was damned if he was ever telling Sam that. Because he'd never let him live it down, ever.

Of course now all he had to do was get back to the motel without crashing into something which wasn't there. Ignoring the fact that if he moved his head too fast the horizon had a tendency to try and turn inside out, and that would have been disturbing on a good day.

So yeah, get back to the motel, maybe put his head in a bucket of ice?

This was a bad idea-

No, this was a weird idea, which was probably worse.

There was a wet tear of wings through air and Dean half turned-

"Hey-"

Half a second later there was a hand wrapped over his eyes, almost firm enough to be uncomfortable.

"What the hell?" Dean threw his hands up and wrapped one of them round Castiel's wrist, pulling on instinct because, _seriously,_ that was not cool at all-

"That would not be wise," Castiel said quietly, close enough to tell Dean that he was right behind him, hell close enough that his voice damn near vibrated through his back and that was kind of weird. Because Cas didn't normally touch him unless it was important, unless he was trying to stop Dean from doing something stupid, or unless he was trying to awkwardly stumble his way through some sort of human gesture, to the embarrassment of everyone involved.

This was definitely the first kind. The 'I'm doing this for your own good' kind, and he was damned if that didn't make Dean want to take a swing at him just for the fun of it sometimes.

"You're using magic that alters your perception." Castiel's voice went low at the end, a warning.

It occurred to Dean, a lot slower than he would have liked, that the dubious magical stuff he had in his eyes let you see exactly the sort of things you shouldn't be able to see, pretty much everything.

He realised that if he'd turned round and looked he could very well have ended up fucking blind.

"I take it this stuff works on you too huh?"

"I'm not certain, but it seems prudent to be cautious."

"Bobby said it just lets you see the edges, shadows of what's really there, things that are invisible. I don't think I'll see you, I'll just see what Jimmy looks like with you inside."

"You make it sound like you don't think that could be dangerous," Castiel sounded quietly chastising, but he didn't sound surprised.

Maybe he was just getting used to Dean's reckless disregard for all the rules.

"Could it?"

Castiel said nothing. Which was either a 'no,' or an 'I don't have a clue.' It shouldn't have been so satisfying that he wasn't the be all and end all of knowledge. It should have annoyed him more than it did.

But it left the thought in his head, the very pointed and sudden thought, that if he looked at Cas right now he might be able to see what an angel looked like without going blind.

"Could I see you like this?" Because if there was even the slightest possibility that he could look at Cas. At Cas poured into his human form and see _something,_ not the whole angelic package not the impossible 'burn your eyes out' truth of him, but he'd get some idea, he'd get something under the lie of human skin.

"I'm not certain," Castiel said quietly. "But I would advise against it."

If there was even a chance.

He pulled ever so slightly at Castiel's wrist, though he knew damn well he wasn't getting it off his face if Castiel didn't want him to.

"I want to see you."

"Dean-" Castiel started warningly.

"Cas, If I can look at you like this-"

"I don't think that would be wise."

Dean made a rude noise that he thought the situation absolutely called for.

"Screw wise, this is probably my one chance to actually get a look at you."

"If you're able to perceive enough of me-"

"Yeah, I know, it's the last damn thing I'll ever see, but I don't think that's how this works. I think I can just see...I don't know, one layer under the world or something. And if I'm even close to being able to look at you, I think you owe me the chance."

Castiel moved ever so slightly behind him, like he was taking in a breath. Like Dean had hit a weakness in his protest- and he was damned if he wasn't going to push at it.

"It isn't like I'm asking for much, seriously, while the world's a mess like this I can see what I'd never be able to see, and that has to include something of what you are, and I want that. I want to, hell maybe I need to."

He'd only ever had Castiel's word. He'd never _seen,_ and Dean had never been good at taking things on faith.

The pause went on too long.

"Cas please."

There was the faintest sigh against the back of his neck.

"If I'm bright through your eyelids, do not open them," Castiel said firmly.

Dean nodded awkwardly under the press of his fingers.

Castiel very, very slowly relaxed his hand and Dean eased it away from his eyes.

For a long second he kept them closed. He wasn't entirely sure Castiel's hand wouldn't be the last thing he ever saw. But all he could see was darkness.

So he opened them.

The _first_ thing he saw was Castiel's hand, which was a good start. It wasn't the hand of an angel, he figured that much when he still had his eyeballs intact, but it wasn't a human hand any more, it wasn't anything like he saw when he looked at his own.

It was like Dean could see through and _around_ Castiel's fingers at the same time, and every line was overlaid in liquid gold. It kind of looked like his hand was on fire, slow curls of burning yellow trailing off like flames.

He turned it over, pressed his own hand against it, half-expecting it to be warm, but he couldn't feel the lines of gold- and silver now, both curling together like melted jewellery. The skin wasn't hot, no matter what it looked like, Cas didn't feel any different. He didn't feel like he was losing anything.

Dean took a breath and turned around.

Castiel-

Castiel really wasn't anywhere close to human.

Gold curled off of him like sunlight off of a lake. Streaming off of his skin and covering everything it touched with smears of colour and light.

It was like his skin was pouring out _angel_.

The gold lines spread out wider, up and over Castiel's head and arcing out to the sides.

Like two gigantic golden-

"Holy shit."

So, yeah, on the plus side his eyes hadn't burned out of his skull, so clearly he wasn't seeing what Cas really looked like. But he was seeing- something, Jesus- he thought maybe he was seeing under Jimmy's skin in some messed up sort of way. Where the angel underneath was seeping through the cracks- or maybe something that didn't sound quite so damn gross. Because it wasn't gross, it was kind of incredible.

"Dean?" There was a cautious intensity to the word, like Dean might explode into ash at any moment.

He shook his head instead.

"I'm not looking at you," he said carefully. "At least not right at you, given that I can still see."

"What do you see?" Castiel asked curiously.

"You look-" Dean struggled for a way to describe it.

Cas tilted his head to one side, trailing light like time-lapse photography.

"-like you got angel spilling out all over the place," Dean finished around the edge of a smile, because it was the best description he could think of, even if it did sound totally ridiculous.

Judging by Castiel's expression it wasn't all that helpful either.

Dean took a step and prodded the edge of his trench coat, half expecting the lines of gold to come apart under his touch and fall to the floor.

But instead they just parted around his fingers, until it looked like he was slithering his hand _through_ Castiel.

Yeah, that really, really should have been disturbing but all he could do was huff a surprised breath.

But that was nothing, _nothing_ compared to what happened when Dean's fingers drifted near his bare skin. For a fraction of a second the gold clung to them, split into gold and silver lines, shining there like fluorescent paint, and then it broke apart and disappeared.

Dean couldn't resist lifting his hand and pressing his fingers against the edge of his jaw, where the gold was deeper, under and outside of the skin, brighter every time Cas moved. Every time Dean touched it, pressing gold and silver fingerprints into Castiel's skin.

Cas didn't seem to object.

So Dean touched his hair, which shifted and flared under his fingers, gold streaking out of it like it couldn't contain it under the motion. Like Castiel was filled up to the brim, angel spilling out in waves, and Dean laughed out a breath at the thought.

He kind of felt like he was looking at something he shouldn't, something people didn't get to see.

Something no one got to see.

"Dude, you're awesome," he said, and he meant it, he really did.

Castiel mouth shifted slightly under the compliment, not quite a smile, something more confused, and it was a slide of pale skin and a blur of gold.

Dean let his hand fall, pressed at the length of Castiel's mouth and watched light trail over the ends of his fingers, like he was breathing it out, like he was _literally_ filled with it.

"Dean," Castiel said, very slowly and very quietly, and he sounded surprised. It occurred to Dean that he might be pushing the personal boundary issues here a little bit. Even more than Castiel usually did.

But something else occurred to him at the same time.

Dean wanted to know what that trail of gold tasted like. He wanted to know if he could feel it on his tongue, if he could open his mouth around it and taste it turn to silver.

He leant into the light, tipped Castiel's head back with his hand and kissed him.

The angel gave one sharp start of surprise, mouth opening under the pressure.

Castiel's mouth didn't taste like something strange and unreal, it was warm and human.

Dean pushed his hands into Castiel's hair, made cold by the wind, made cold by wherever the hell Castiel had been- flying maybe, that was what angels did, what angels were supposed to do. Every line of him was stiff and awkward under Dean's hands, but his mouth was soft, his mouth was all give and warmth under Dean's careful exploration, and he was so tempted to slide inside, but half afraid he'd burn up in there.

Castiel raised his hands, as if to stop him, and Dean murmured protest and caught his hands at his sides, held them there until Castiel relaxed.

"You're so _bright,_ " Dean said against his mouth, and his voice sounded astonished to his own ears, and maybe a little too high, like little-kid-excited high. The weirdness of that should probably have bothered him more.

"Dean, I think you should stop." It was a strangely quiet suggestion, calm, gentle.

"I don't want to stop," Dean told him, which was a perfectly sensible answer to the question, and honest, so damn honest. Maybe the first time he'd ever been that honest. "I really don't want to stop."

Castiel was warm and real, soft where Dean pressed into him now. Taking Dean's weight where he held him, and he thought maybe he could feel an echo of gold on his own mouth.

"I want this," Dean told him and his hand found its way under the edge of his shirt. Castiel breathed in, one quick startled breath when Dean's hand touched bare skin, and his mouth was so bright Dean had to half shut his eyes. "And I want you to want it too." He didn't think he meant to sound quite so needy but it was there shivering under the words. But Dean didn't care he didn't care at all.

"Dean, there's something wrong," Castiel's voice was low, firm, like he needed Dean to listen. "I don't think you know what you want right now."

He couldn't help but laugh at that.

"How are you so sure of that huh? How do you know what I want? I've thought about this, I've thought about you, sometimes good things, but mostly-" Dean nearly choked on a laugh. "-mostly not such good things, things that I know I shouldn't be thinking. Because you're an angel, because you currently have a dick." He laughed again and it sounded strange and breathless. "Because we're all right on the edge of what might be the apocalypse. But the fact that it's you, the fact that it's _you._ That makes it okay sometimes, but mostly not- Jesus- mostly not. And then I think about you wanting it too, and it always falls apart then, it always falls apart because I know you would never. " His voice had gone low and raw, too many words, none of which he'd ever meant to say. But Castiel was so quiet and so bright and Dean could taste him in his mouth and it was a choice between talking and _falling._ Talking or being swallowed up completely.

He found the softness of Castiel's waist, the shivering edge of his stomach and he wasn't prepared at all for every flicker of reaction under his hands. He wasn't prepared for the way Castiel's mouth opened, and Dean couldn't look through the light of it, so he kissed him instead. He tilted his head up and kissed him.

Castiel was strangely still but also strangely pliant when Dean took handfuls of his shirt and eased it higher. When he looked down the slashes of Castiel's bare skin were bright too, silver-gold trailing over his hands where they pressed in and held him.

He needed this, fingers clumsy-slow where they pulled at the front of Castiel's pants, cloth warm against his knuckles, before his fingers were slip-sliding under the waistband, slipping down where Cas was warm and soft and human, and _touching_ him, and Castiel was breathing like he needed to, but he'd forgotten how.

"Cas-" Dean's voice trailed off, soft and slow, like maybe he just wanted to say it, just wanted to leave it against his mouth while it sounded- felt so wrecked under his own. Cas didn't taste like gold, but Dean thought maybe he tasted like something better. Like he was the end, like if Dean kept kissing him there would be trust and victory and hope and if he stopped there would be nothing. It sounded so stupid, he knew it did. But he wanted to tell Castiel anyway, wanted him to know how _much_ he was, how much he meant. Even if he'd never say it again. Because Dean never said anything. He never said anything that mattered.

"I think about you, always about you, and I can't stop."

Castiel was pouring gold like he was unravelling, and Dean wasn't so much touching it now as he was _inside_ it. The arc of gold above them moving and blurring in long brilliant arcs.

But then Castiel caught his hands, caught them both and eased them away, he told Dean _no._ He told him to _stop._

The world hollowed out.

"Cas, please."

Castiel shook his head, slow dizzy trails of fire and light.

"Dean, you have to stop."

"Why?" Dean demanded fiercely. "What do you want, what do I have to do?"

"Dean-"

"Don't-" Dean said finally, roughly, and shook his head. "I know I can't." Because it was obvious, even Castiel knew it. "I know I'm not allowed."

Castiel's eyes were pure gold, a bright hot flare of yellow-white that it hurt to look at, hurt to breathe in and Dean tipped his head back away from it before it blinded him.

The sky swirled over them, more of it the more he leant back, swirls of blue and grey and white that made him dizzy, so unbelievably dizzy.

Then the sky was further away, further away than before, and he thought maybe he was falling.

He was fairly sure Castiel caught him before he hit the ground-

  


~~~

  
Dean woke up on a crappy motel bed, and it was a sluggish, reluctant return to the world accompanied by a great deal of misery and discomfort.

His head felt exactly like someone had stamped on it. A completely unsubtle thud of pain that sloshed from one side to the other. He really wished he didn't have as much experience with that particular sensation.

"Crap."

"Dean?" Sam appeared in his vision, like a gigantic, worried scarecrow, a gigantic, _loud,_ worried scarecrow. "How do you feel?"

"Like crap," Dean said honestly and his voice sounded like it had been dragged across the floor. "Like you're really unnecessarily loud."

Sam's expression of relief folded into something a little more contrite, though not by much. Which Dean was encouraged by, it meant he probably wasn't going to die horribly. Even if the rest of him wasn't entirely convinced.

"What the hell?"

Sam settled on the edge of the bed and the movement made Dean briefly tempted to throw up all over him. Which, luckily, passed fairly quickly.

"I told you to come back right away." Sam was clearly getting all his chastising out of the way while Dean was in no fit state to protest, or call him anything inventive. Maybe he'd rethink the whole 'throwing up all over him.'

"I was going to," he protested.

"Clearly you didn't."

Dean grunted, and when his head didn't feel like it was going to split apart and spill his brain all over the bed he very slowly eased himself to a sit. He regretted it for about five seconds. Then the room wobbled into focus, bland, dull and entirely lifeless. He couldn't see anything he shouldn't have done.

"Do you remember what happened?" Sam asked quietly.

Dean looked at him.

Oh yeah, he remembered everything.

"I remember passing out in the middle of the woods," Dean admitted, but that was about _all_ he was going to admit to.

"Cas brought you back."

Dean very carefully didn't react to that at all.

"He still here?"

Sam shook his head. "No, he left not long after I got the stuff off of you."

Dean wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse. Then decided he wasn't going to give a crap either way.

"Yeah, remind me to have a word with Bobby about the side effects of that."

"What were the side effects anyway?" Sam asked, and he was wearing that worried frown that he never left home without.

Dean rubbed a sore spot above his left eye.

"You don't want to know, trust me."

Sam leant forward, elbows on his knees.

"Cas said-"

"Cas said what?" Dean snapped, and when his head gave a warning twinge he ignored it completely.

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"He said to keep an eye on you, why did something-"

Dean shook his head, then groaned at his own stupidly and squeezed it until it stopped hurting.

"No, I just- I made a complete dick of myself ok, seeing things that weren't there, and I'd rather forget all about it. Or at least get a new head."

Sam pulled a face at him, his familiar 'you're an idiot and you do idiot things' face.

Dean breathed out when Sam stood up again, took his loudness and his worried expression across the room.  He dragged himself up, forced himself to be half way steady across the floor and shoved not-particularly-hard past Sam to get to the bathroom.

Sam called him something unflattering through the door.

Dean responded in kind.

He could pretend he was fine.

He had a lot of experience pretending he was fine.

Castiel waited until Sam disappeared to get food at least before he showed up. Dean figured he should be grateful for small mercies. Because there would have been nothing like having this messed up conversation with his brother in the room.

Dean only realised he was there because he nearly walked into him coming out of the bathroom.

"Jesus Christ-"

"Dean," he said quietly, and he knew he completely imagined that it sounded like an accusation.

Castiel was completely human again, ordinary and tidy and strangely flat, though Dean suspected he was never going to be able to look at him again without seeing him spilling out waves of silver-gold.

It was almost like he didn't fit in the motel room any more, as if he _shouldn't_ fit.

But he was wearing that same expression of calm, polite interest he always seemed to wear when nothing apocalyptic was happening. Dean didn't know why but that made it worse somehow.

"Cas," he managed, matching Castiel with a flatness of his own.

He wondered exactly what you were supposed to say to an angel you did your best to sexually assault while under the influence of magical drugs.

And why did it always manage to sound so much worse when he laid it all out?

"I'm sorry," Dean said, one quick burst of ragged words before Castiel could say- whatever the hell it was he was going to say. "I'm sorry, about what I did earlier. I didn't mean it, I didn't know what I was doing but I was out of line, and I'm sorry if you were offended or disturbed or whatever."

Looking at Castiel didn't help a bit. He turned his back, grabbing random objects off of the table and dumping them into his bag, with little care where they ended up. Hell, he barely even looked.

"I'm just saying no to drugs from now on ok."

Castiel moved behind him and Dean forced himself not to turn around.

"Dean, there's no need to apologise, I wanted to tell you-"

Dean cleared his throat, breaking Castiel's voice straight down the middle.

"Look, the crazy shit people do when they're on drugs, you don't bring it up, and you don't hold it against them," he said before Castiel could continue. "I'd feel a whole lot better if we could both agree that's a good rule to follow."

He still didn't turn around, shoving their books back into his bag in quick jerky movements that made it look like he was busy.

The pause went on far too long, he ran out of books before Castiel ran out of silence.

"Very well," Castiel said finally, quietly and his voice was flat in a way it hadn't been before. "I apologise if I made you uncomfortable."

The fact that he had the angel apologising to him now made him feel like a whole new sort of dick.

"I'm pretty used to uncomfortable by now, I'll just add it to all the rest."

"Dean?" There was a softness to his name, a quiet insistence that made Dean stop what he was doing.

"Yeah?" he said reluctantly. Because he knew that they weren't finished, that they were still hanging on the edge of something, and he swallowed and pressed his hands into the table and braced himself for it.

"The last thing you said to me," Castiel told him, testing the words, as if it was important he get them right. "You were wrong."

Dean stared at the books shoved into his bag. He didn't say a word, barely breathed when Castiel's feet brought him across the carpet, brought him close enough to touch.

"But I'll forget what happened, if that's what you want."

Dean took a breath, sharp and too loud, then swallowed it quick enough to hurt.

There was a mess of words in his throat and he was fairly sure they were all wrong. But it didn't matter because he couldn't force anything through his teeth. He couldn't remember ever being this desperate to speak while being so terrified of it at the same time.

"No," he said quietly.

He turned around.

The room was empty.


End file.
